Mr. Baruch Tenembaum
The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation
New York
Dear Mr. Tenembaum

I thank you for your letter inviting me to be part of the Honorary Board of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation over which you preside. I am well aware of the activities of the Foundation and the endeavor that is made towards peace, solidarity and dialogue as well as the understanding between cultures and religions.

It will be a pleasure for me to be part of the Honorary Committee of the IRWF, thus becoming the first President of a Spanish government to be incorporated in this organization.

Warm Regards,José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero
President of the Government of Spain

John F. Nash has been included in the Honorary Membership of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, a non-governmental organization (ONG) that develops educational programs based on the examples of solidarity and courage of the saviors of the Holocaust.

In a letter addressed to the founder of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, the Argentine Baruch Tenembaum, Nash indicated:

”I have always been an admirer of Raoul Wallenberg because he was such a notable (and unfortunately also tragic) example or model of the sort of human who has compassion for other persons independently of their specific ethnicity or cultural history”.

Nash received the Nobel Prize for Economics in l994 for his pioneering analysis of the theory of equilibrium between non-cooperative work, a thesis about the mathematics of competition that contradicts the doctrines of Adam Smith, the father of modern economics.

Nash’s life was brought to the screen in a Ron Howard film ”A Beautifull Mind”, winner of four Academy Awards from Hollywood. The movie narrates the life of the mathematical genius, played by the actor Russell Crowe.

Nash is the eighth Nobel Prize Laureate who has joined the Wallenberg Foundation, together with the Dalai Lama, John Hume, Shimon Peres, Jose Ramos Horta, Oscar Arias, David Trimble, and Elie Wiesel.

”We believe that this committee will continue to work alongside its goals of promoting dialogue, understanding and harmony among people.”

]]>http://www.raoulwallenberg.net/about/support/support-17/prime-minister-republic/feed/0Polish President Becomes the Newest Member of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundationhttp://www.raoulwallenberg.net/about/support/polish-president-becomes/
http://www.raoulwallenberg.net/about/support/polish-president-becomes/#commentsWed, 01 Jan 2003 00:00:00 +0000adminhttp://www.raoulwallenberg.net/?p=596Polish President, Aleksander Kwasniewski, has become the newest member of the IRWF. He joins a list of more than 30 heads of state that have become involved with the Argentine-born NGO. The IRWF works to promote the example of solidarity we find in the Swedish diplomat, Raoul Wallenberg, who during the Holocaust (1933-1945), saved tens of thousands of persecuted Jews from certain death.

In a letter directed to the founder of the IRWF, Baruch Tenembaum, President Kwasniewski writes:

”Raoul Wallenberg’s rescuing mission is well known in Poland and his memory deserves our respect. The enormous challenge he had to face was shared by thousands of Poles who endangered their own lives in order to provide refuge and assistance to condemned Jews. Your educational program, ”Diplomacy and the Holocaust” reminds me of the protagonist role undertaken by the Polish Foreign Service during rescue missions.

Likewise, I would like to point out the ”Life Marches” that are annually celebrated in my country through which thousands of youngsters of different confessions render homage at the extermination camps to the millions murdered by the Nazi Regime.”

President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel, former U.S. President, Gerald Ford, the King of Morocco, Mohamed VI, the prime ministers of Canada, Israel, Norway, Portugal, Lithuania, and Slovenia are among some of the heads of state on the IRWF membership list.

”Raoul Wallenberg ‘s life and achievements highlighted the role of the bystander, of the third party amidst conflict and suffering. His intervention gave hope to victims, encouraged them to fight and resist, to hang on and bear witness. It aroused our collective consciousness. The mystery remains, however: why were there so few Raouls? Remembering his life should be an inspiration to others to act; for our future generations to act; for all of us to act. As Edmund Burke said: ”All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

”What happened during World War II cannot be easily forgotten and what Raoul Wallenberg did then will always be remembered. I therefore wish the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation every success.”

”People in my native country know Swedish diplomat, Raoul Wallenberg as a person who saved the lives of Jewish people. Lithuanians did also, more than once, come to the rescue of the people who needed help. Contemporary Lithuania is a country that understands and tries to promote dialogue between peoples and speaks in favor for historic truth. I want to inform you that I have set up an International Commission for Assessment of Crimes Committed by Nazi and Soviet Regimes in Lithuania and do sincerely hope that it will also contribute to better understanding.”

]]>http://www.raoulwallenberg.net/about/support/support-17/president-lithuania-valdas/feed/0German Chancellor becomes newest member of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundationhttp://www.raoulwallenberg.net/about/support/german-chancellor-becomes/
http://www.raoulwallenberg.net/about/support/german-chancellor-becomes/#commentsWed, 01 Jan 2003 00:00:00 +0000adminhttp://www.raoulwallenberg.net/?p=597Gerhard Schröder, Chancellor of Germany, has become the newest member of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, a non-governmental organization created in Argentina, which works to make known the example of solidarity we find in the Swedish diplomat who saved tens of thousands of people persecuted by the Nazi Regime in Budapest between 1944 and 1945.

Among the accomplishments undertaken by the IRWF, it can be point out the educational program titled, ”Diplomacy and the Holocaust”, presented at the German Ambassador’s residency in September 2000. On that occasion, the chief of the mission, Ambassador Hans Ulrich Spohn toasted the Jewish New Year, which coincided with the event.

The IRWF was the first NGO in Argentina to congratulate ex-Ambassador Adolf Ritter Von Wagner for the German president’s unparalleled gesture. President Johannes Rau requested exoneration from the Jewish people at the Israeli Parliament in February 2000 for the atrocities committed by the Third Reich. It is expected that in the next weeks there will be a meeting between President Rau and the founder of the IRWF, Baruch Tenembaum, in Berlin. This meeting will serve to analyze a work agenda on topics of common interest.

In the letter, addressed to Tenembaum and signed by the Chancellor himself, we read: ”It is with pleasure that I join the Wallenberg Foundation as an Honorary Member. Raoul Wallenberg personifies the battle of the valiant individual against human contempt, the authority of terror, and totalitarism.”

The President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel; former President of the United States, Gerald Ford, King of Morocco, Mohamed VI; the Prime Ministers of Canada, Israel, Norway, Portugal, Lithuania and Slovenia are some of the Heads of State who have recently joined the ranks of the IRWF.